Sunday, March 27

Americans better not accuse Britain's Daily Mail of being a Russian stooge

Hunter Biden helped secure millions in funding for military biotech research program in Ukraine | Daily Mail Online - March 25

I linked to the above investigative report in an earlier post, but I think a shot heard round the world deserves more than a link. So, below is the entire report. 

Yes indeed, when the British press decides to publish truth instead of twaddle, they are more than capable.  

EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden DID help secure millions in funding for US contractor in Ukraine specializing in deadly pathogen research, laptop emails reveal, raising more questions about the disgraced son of then vice president

  • The Russian government held a press conference Thursday claiming that Hunter Biden helped finance a US military 'bioweapons' research program in Ukraine
  • However the allegations were branded a brazen propaganda ploy to justify president Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and sow discord in the US
  • But emails and correspondence obtained by DailyMail.com from Hunter's abandoned laptop show the claims may well be true
  • The emails show Hunter helped secure millions of dollars of funding for Metabiota, a Department of Defense contractor specializing in research on pandemic-causing diseases
  • He also introduced Metabiota to an allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas firm, Burisma, for a 'science project' involving high biosecurity level labs in Ukraine 
  • The president's son and his colleagues invested $500,000 in Metabiota through their firm Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners 
  • They raised several million dollars of funding for the company from investment giants including Goldman Sachs 

Moscow’s claim that Hunter Biden helped finance a US military 'bioweapons' research program in Ukraine is at least partially true, according to new emails obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.

The commander of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, claimed there was a 'scheme of interaction between US government agencies and Ukrainian biological objects' and pointed to the 'financing of such activities by structures close to the current US leadership, in particular the investment fund Rosemont Seneca, which is headed by Hunter Biden.'

Intelligence experts say the Russian military leader's allegations were a brazen propaganda ploy to justify president Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and sow discord in the US.

But emails from Hunter's abandoned laptop show he helped secure millions of dollars of funding for Metabiota, a Department of Defense contractor specializing in research on pandemic-causing diseases that could be used as bioweapons.

He also introduced Metabiota to an allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas firm, Burisma, for a 'science project' involving high biosecurity level labs in Ukraine.

And although Metabiota is ostensibly a medical data company, its vice president emailed Hunter in 2014 describing how they could 'assert Ukraine's cultural and economic independence from Russia' – an unusual goal for a biotech firm.


The Russian government held a press conference Thursday claiming that Hunter Biden helped finance a US military bioweapons research program in Ukraine. But emails and correspondence obtained by DailyMail.com from Hunter's abandoned laptop show the claims may well be true

The Russian government held a press conference Thursday claiming that Hunter Biden helped finance a US military bioweapons research program in Ukraine. But emails and correspondence obtained by DailyMail.com from Hunter's abandoned laptop show the claims may well be true

Metabiota is a Department of Defense contractor specializing in research on pandemic-causing diseases that could be used as bioweapons

Metabiota is a Department of Defense contractor specializing in research on pandemic-causing diseases that could be used as bioweapons

In April 2014, Metabiota vice president Mary Guttieri wrote a memo to Hunter outlining how they could 'assert Ukraine's cultural and economic independence from Russia'. 'Thanks so much for taking time out of your intense schedule to meet with Kathy [Dimeo, Metabiota executive] and I on Tuesday. We very much enjoyed our discussion,' Guttieri wrote

In April 2014, Metabiota vice president Mary Guttieri wrote a memo to Hunter outlining how they could 'assert Ukraine's cultural and economic independence from Russia'. 'Thanks so much for taking time out of your intense schedule to meet with Kathy [Dimeo, Metabiota executive] and I on Tuesday. We very much enjoyed our discussion,' Guttieri wrote

Four days after Guttieri's April 2014 email, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi wrote to Hunter revealing that the then-Vice President's son had pitched a 'science project' involving Burisma and Metabiota in Ukraine. 'Please find few initial points to be discussed for the purposes of analyzing the potential of this as you called, 'Science Ukraine' project,' Pozharskyi wrote

Four days after Guttieri's April 2014 email, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi wrote to Hunter revealing that the then-Vice President's son had pitched a 'science project' involving Burisma and Metabiota in Ukraine. 'Please find few initial points to be discussed for the purposes of analyzing the potential of this as you called, 'Science Ukraine' project,' Pozharskyi wrote

Government spending records show the Department of Defense awarded an $18.4million contract to Metabiota between February 2014 and November 2016, with $307,091 earmarked for 'Ukraine research projects'

Government spending records show the Department of Defense awarded an $18.4million contract to Metabiota between February 2014 and November 2016, with $307,091 earmarked for 'Ukraine research projects'

Emails and defense contract data reviewed by DailyMail.com suggest that Hunter had a prominent role in making sure Metabiota was able to conduct its pathogen research just a few hundred miles from the border with Russia.

Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskyi (pictured). 'As I understand the Metabiota was a subcontract to principal contactor of the DoD B&V [Black & Veatch],' he wrote in an email in 2014

Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskyi (pictured). 'As I understand the Metabiota was a subcontract to principal contactor of the DoD B&V [Black & Veatch],' he wrote in an email in 2014

The project turned into a national security liability for Ukraine when Russian forces invaded the country last month.

Metabiota has worked in Ukraine for Black & Veatch, a US defense contractor with deep ties to military intelligence agencies, which built secure labs in Ukraine that analyzed killer diseases and bioweapons.

Earlier this month US officials warned congress that 'Russian forces may be seeking to gain control' of these 'biological research facilities', prompting fears that deadly and even engineered pathogens could fall into Russian hands.

Hunter and his colleagues at his investment firm Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) routinely raised millions of dollars for technology companies, hoping the firms would take off and make them all fortunes.

Metabiota was one of those firms. Emails between Hunter and his colleagues excitedly discuss how the company's monitoring of medical data could become an essential tool for governments and companies looking to spot outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The president's son and his colleagues invested $500,000 in Metabiota through their firm Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners.

They raised several million dollars of funding for the company from investment giants including Goldman Sachs.

But emails show Hunter was also particularly involved in Metabiota's operations in Ukraine.

Hunter's pitches to investors claimed that they not only organized funding for the firm, they also helped it 'get new customers' including 'government agencies in case of Metabiota'.

He and his business partner Eric Schwerin even discussed subletting their office space to the firm in April 2014, their emails reveal.

That month, Metabiota vice president Mary Guttieri wrote a memo to Hunter outlining how they could 'assert Ukraine's cultural and economic independence from Russia'.

'Thanks so much for taking time out of your intense schedule to meet with Kathy [Dimeo, Metabiota executive] and I on Tuesday. We very much enjoyed our discussion,' Guttieri wrote.

'As promised, I've prepared the attached memo, which provides an overview of Metabiota, our engagement in Ukraine, and how we can potentially leverage our team, networks, and concepts to assert Ukraine's cultural and economic independence from Russia and continued integration into Western society.'

Former senior CIA officer Sam Faddis, who has reviewed emails on Hunter's laptop, told DailyMail.com that the offer to help assert Ukraine's independence was odd for a biotech executive.

'It raises the question, what is the real purpose of this venture? It's very odd,' he said.

Mary Guttieri, Metabiota vice president, is seen at a meeting with U.S. and Ukrainian military

Mary Guttieri, Metabiota vice president, is seen at a meeting with U.S. and Ukrainian military

Russia's Defense Ministry on Thursday put out a diagram with arrows connecting Biden, Soros and the Democratic Party to Ukrainian biolabs

Russia's Defense Ministry on Thursday put out a diagram with arrows connecting Biden, Soros and the Democratic Party to Ukrainian biolabs

The president's son and his colleagues invested $500,000 in Metabiota through their firm Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners. They raised several million dollars of funding for the company from investment giants including Goldman Sachs

The president's son and his colleagues invested $500,000 in Metabiota through their firm Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners. They raised several million dollars of funding for the company from investment giants including Goldman Sachs

Emails between Hunter and his colleagues at Rosemont Seneca excitedly discuss how the company's monitoring of medical data could become an essential tool for governments and companies looking to spot outbreaks of infectious diseases

Emails between Hunter and his colleagues at Rosemont Seneca excitedly discuss how the company's monitoring of medical data could become an essential tool for governments and companies looking to spot outbreaks of infectious diseases

Guttieri had a leading role in Metabiota's Ukraine operations, meeting with other company executives and US and Ukrainian military officials in October 2016 to discuss 'cooperation in surveillance and prevention of especially dangerous infectious diseases, including zoonotic diseases in Ukraine and neighboring countries' according to a 2016 report by the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine.

At the time, Hunter was serving as a board member of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, owned by former top government official and allegedly corrupt billionaire Mikolay Zlochevsky.

Four days after Guttieri's April 2014 email, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi wrote to Hunter revealing that the then-Vice President's son had pitched a 'science project' involving Burisma and Metabiota in Ukraine.

'Please find few initial points to be discussed for the purposes of analyzing the potential of this as you called, 'Science Ukraine' project,' Pozharskyi wrote.

'As I understand the Metabiota was a subcontract to principal contactor of the DoD B&V [Black & Veatch].

'What kind of partnership Metabiota is looking for in Ukraine? From potential non-governmental player in Kiev? Rebuilt the ties with respective ministries in Ukraine, and on the basis of that reinstate the financing from the B&V? Or they look for partnership in managing projects in Ukraine, PR with Government institutions here, financing of the projects?'

Faddis told DailyMail.com that the attempt to get Metabiota to form a partnership with Burisma was a perplexing and worrying revelation.

'His father was the Vice President of the United States and in charge of relations with Ukraine. So why was Hunter not only on the board of a suspect Ukrainian gas firm, but also hooked them up with a company working on bioweapons research?' Faddis said.

'It's an obvious Russian propaganda attempt to take advantage of this. But it doesn't change the fact that there does seem to be something that needs to be explored here.

'The DoD position is that there's nothing nefarious here, this is pandemic early warning research. We don't know for sure that's all that was going on.

'But the question still remains: why is Hunter Biden in the middle of all this? Why is the disgraced son of the vice president at the heart of this – the guy with no discernible skills and a cocaine habit.'

Pozharsky said in his email to Hunter that he had encountered such biological research projects before in his former job as a Ukrainian government official, and claimed that B&V worked on 'similar or the same projects' as the proposed contract for Metabiota.

Government spending records show the Department of Defense awarded an $18.4million contract to Metabiota between February 2014 and November 2016, with $307,091 earmarked for 'Ukraine research projects'.

The US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) also commissioned B&V to build a Biological Safety Level 3 laboratory in Odessa, Ukraine in 2010, which 'provided enhanced equipment and training to effectively, safely and securely identify especially dangerous pathogens' according to a company press release.

Such labs are used to 'study infectious agents or toxins that may be transmitted through the air and cause potentially lethal infections,' the US Department of Health and Human Services says.

B&V was awarded a further five-year $85million contract in 2012.

In a May 2014 email, RSTP partner Schwerin suggested: ‘there are obviously some real potential synergies between Xiaoying’s husband’s work at the CDC and what Metabiota does. Something else to think about’

In a May 2014 email, RSTP partner Schwerin suggested: 'there are obviously some real potential synergies between Xiaoying's husband's work at the CDC and what Metabiota does. Something else to think about'

In another sign of the deep ties between Metabiota and the Department of Defense, Hunter's RSTP business partner Rob Walker said he would 'have a friend reach out to DoD on the down low', in order to prove the company's bona fides to top prospective investors Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in October 2014

In another sign of the deep ties between Metabiota and the Department of Defense, Hunter's RSTP business partner Rob Walker said he would 'have a friend reach out to DoD on the down low', in order to prove the company's bona fides to top prospective investors Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in October 2014

In another sign of the deep ties between Metabiota and the Department of Defense, Hunter's RSTP business partner Rob Walker said he would 'have a friend reach out to DoD on the down low', in order to prove the company's bona fides to top prospective investors Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in October 2014.

RSTP was a subsidiary of Rosemont Capital, an investment company founded by Hunter and former Secretary of State John Kerry's stepson Chris Heinz in 2009.

Metabiota also has close ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), suspected to be the source of the COVID-19 outbreak.

WIV was a hotspot for controversial 'gain of function' research that can create super-strength viruses.

Chinese scientists performed gain of function research on coronaviruses at the WIV, working alongside a US-backed organization EcoHealth Alliance that has since drawn intense scrutiny over its coronavirus research since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers from the Wuhan institute, Metabiota and EcoHealth Alliance published a study together in 2014 on infectious diseases from bats in China, which notes that tests were performed at the WIV.

Shi Zhengli, the WIV Director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases who became dubbed the 'bat lady' for her central role in bat coronavirus research at the lab, was a contributor to the paper.

Metabiota has been an official partner of EcoHealth Alliance since 2014, according to its website.

Hunter Biden helped secure millions in funding for military biotech research program in Ukraine


 [END REPORT]


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